Periodical Vehicle Inspections with Smart Technology

Abstract

This paper presents the major outcomes of the utilization of smart phone applications in the periodical technical inspection process. Road safety is one of the main topics in transportation. Technical defects of vehicles can play an important role in fatal accidents; therefore, periodical vehicle inspection is a common practice amongst many countries across all continents. The authors observed that advancements in smart technologies presented an opportunity to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of vehicle inspections. They specifically focused on the Slovak Republic and described the transition of technical inspections towards smart technologies in this country. The goal was to utilize new technologies and improvements without increasing costs dramatically. The paper discusses the outcomes of the first two years of using this app at every technical inspection station in the Slovak Republic. The smart phones were used not only to help with process management but the novelty is that they also collected data from the sensors and used their own sensors for the vehicle dynamics measurements. One of the important factors is the successful implementation of low cost devices at such a large scale, country wise.

On-Board Fuel Consumption Meter Field Testing Results

“…The OBD reading during the PTIs in Slovakia is made by using a smartphone app and a low-end OBD reader. The utilization of this process, together with its benefits and results, was described in [35]. The mSTK Android mobile application was developed in Java programming language in partnership with TESTEK a.s., a joint stock company providing vehicle inspection services for the Slovak Ministry of Transportation.…”

“…The data required by the European Commission via [3] to be collected and submitted starting on 20 May 2023 are the following : Among the other features described in [35], the application reads the OBFCM data via the ELM327 OBD reader [36], providing a very cost-effective solution.…”

Particulate Matter Emission and Air Pollution Reduction by Applying Variable Systems in Tribologically Optimized Diesel Engines for Vehicles in Road Traffic

“…The current Euro VI regulation was introduced by Directive 595/2009 with the corresponding accompanying amendments, and it defines, for the first time, the limits for the permitted number of PM (PN) and introduces stricter requirements regarding OBD [49,50]. Compliance with emission standards is controlled in stationary conditions for vehicles with diesel engines or in transient conditions for vehicles powered by diesel or gas engines, natural gas (NG), and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) (Table 1) [49,51]. According to Directive 2005.10/2006.10, manufacturers should guarantee and also demonstrate, in an appropriate way, that the emissions from the IC engine will meet the defined limits, the values of which depend on the vehicle categories.…”

“…That is why the method of measuring PN at idle was introduced in several European countries during the PTI, and it has also been accepted in several countries around the world. In this way, by applying the method of measuring PM in exhaust gases, it is possible to diagnose the state of the diesel particulate filter (DPF) and confirm the failure if one exists [51,52].…”

Vehicle Technical Inspection Results in Relation to EU Directives and Selected EU Countries

“…Despite the fact that some recently research results on the vehicle technical inspections for different EU countries are published (e.g. see Hudec et al [23] for all vehicles or Tapak et al [24] for vehicles with smart technologies) it is difficult to find more detailed statistical data on age-dependent different types of vehicle failures. In most of the published literature a summarized statistical data on the vehicle defects can only be found.…”